Smokey the Magnificent

The party was OK… not spectacular, but not disastrous. We’ll get to that shortly. Firstly, there are two questions which have been bothering me, and both relate to bodily fluids. Perhaps you could help me out.

1. Blood is salty, no? I read somewhere that it has the same salinity as seawater, which was supposed to prove something meaningful and evolutionary; but whether that be the case or no, if one cuts a gash in one’s forearm and sucks the blood (accidentally, I mean; while making a flan, perhaps; not just for kicks), it tastes like salt. So. Wouldn’t drinking a whole pint of it, or however much vampires drink at one go, make you extremely dehydrated? I mean, vampire physiology is presumably constructed so as to cope with it; one does not envisage them carrying along a bottle of Evian. Well, Edward probably would. It’s the sort of marvy accoutrement one would expect a sparkly vampire to tote. But anyhoo. Blood. Salty. Yes. Interesting thought, no?

2. If one were alone in the wilderness, miles from civilisation, clean water, alcohol, antibiotics etc and a repellent crocodile bit off half your arm, would it a) improve your situation or b) otherwise to throom on your own stump? Urine is sterile and acidic, which makes me feel it would have antibacterial or cleansing properties of some sort. But mebbe not. And it would hurt. Helpdesk Man cautiously gave his opinion that it might be better to do so than not, but hesitated to make a definitive pronouncement. I like that in a man. It stops us from being sued. But what do you think, standard disclaimers aside? And if you thought it was the right thing to do, would you do it?

Anyway. Party. Yes. It was OK. Apart from the guest of honour’s family and my own family, there were only two guests present; fortunately, my family is capacious and the guest of honour had her parents visiting, so combined with our lack of chairs we managed to fill up the living room tolerably well. Much to my amazement, people bought Tupperware (!!); my small sister Ruth came over in the morning and baked practically all the food while I worked on the quilt, which I got finished (Is Better Than Perfect) more or less in time; and the snortlepig’s behaviour impressed the Tupperware lady so much (?!) she gave her a tiny pink container in a Handy Size. It seems the key to successful Tupperwaring is enthusiastically pointing out how any size of container, be it barely big enough to hold a crocus or large enough to host swim meets in, is Handy. I wonder if they conducted studies to find out the average household volume of leftover lasagna, or the typical quantity of Scroggin consumed by a family of four? At any rate we all agreed meekly that the various sizes were Handy indeed, and she got a bit cocky and asked me for an onion in order to demonstrate a device called, I kid you not, the Happy Chopper. It’s not a DC villain; it dices.

After this event my dear friends came over and we ate leftovers while watching American Graffti (kinda slow, Harrison Ford’s part smaller than expected) and The Lost Boys (all kinds of awesome; why do vampires have universally ridiculous hair? Is it a function of old age? “Ahh, I can’t keep up with the styles any more, I’m two hundred years old - here, love, pour a bottle of bleach on it and we’ll fling a bit of moose tallow in for texture.”).

Best yet, I discovered that my dates were all out of whack and my article isn’t actually due until Tuesday. Cue choruses of Mormon cherubs. Perhaps I will make it to Christmas after all.

• Nobody is going to come to the baby shower-cum-Tupperware party tomorrow. I can’t blame them. I’m tempted to ditch it, and I’m hosting. I did finally get hold of the Tupperware lady, and she assured me she’d “only speak for half an hour”. Half an hour? How much is there to say? What if I bring up bisphenol-A in a fit of rebellion? What if I panic when nobody buys anything and end up with microwaveable jelly moulds? What if the woman gives me a Look to indicate scorn and hatred for my having dragged her out on a Saturday? Only one person has RSVPed, and she made very sure to say she couldn’t stay long - presumably so she could scarper at the first sight of a pourable cereal container.
• I have no idea how to structure this article of mine that’s due on Monday. None. And it’s 800 words too short.
• I also have 6000 more words to go on NaNoWriMo. Most of them will probably be rewrites of the article. Feh.
• I was supposed to go shopping for groceries with Sister-in-Law today. She is not online and has not shown up. How am I to get the ingredients to make the lemon slice, the chocolate cornflake slice, the focaccia, the puff pastry cheese straws, the pecan tarts, the forgotten cookies and the cupcakes? And how will I have time to make them?
• Also, the baby quilt. It is Not Done. Not remotely done. It is barely even a flimsy. I can chain-stitch the stems this evening in theory, but only if the snortlepig isn’t climbing all over me. Hah.
• And I have to tidy up the garden, otherwise the church ladies will turn up and want to investigate every nook and cranny of it. And there’s a dead bird on the back lawn. Helpdesk Man, informed of this in panic-stricken tones, says consolingly “Don’t worry, it’s not going anywhere”.

Ha! Word from Sister-in-Law. Am still in PJs. Half an hour, she says. This is OK. Will give the pig more time to nap. I will think of calming things, but not the ocean because that makes me nervy. Maybe the sky, although I had a horrible dream last night that - oh, never mind. I am clearly wibbling. Into the breach!

Would you rather dream every night of:

a faraway land of such haunting, pellucid beauty that you woke every morning with an ache in your throat, longing for it to be real, feeling like a marooned mariner on a desolate shore as you wandered through life seeking the place your heart called home…

or a pack of angry raptors?

Yesterday was the 3rd anniversary of myself and Helpdesk Man. I wasn’t expecting anything exciting, as we’d made vague plans to go to a hot pool or something on a convenient weekend (see a couple of posts ago). But then the night before Helpdesk Man warned me not to make any plans for the evening, and at 10:30 yesterday morning a lovely floral display of marigolds in pots turned up. Naturally I then felt immense guilt about not having organised anything, and spent the day feverishly cleaning the house. (Thank heavens for immense guilt, incidentally; it was filthy. NaNoWriMo does my already precarious domesticity no favours.)

At five-fifteen Helpdesk Man returned home and prepped the snortlepig for a trip to Gran’s. We then donned our motorbiking gear, headed into town and had dinner at Oliveto, a Mediterranean restaurant. We suspect it’s a front for the New Zealand Mafia actually, as it’s always suspiciously empty; but the flatbreads are good.

We then went for a saunter down y the river as a tribute to more carefree times, and emerged opposite the movie theatre where I used to work. It’s currently being revamped as the Lido, and the door was open; so naturally we snuck in and fossicked about a bit. It’s niiiiiice. Chandeliers, chunderous Victorian swirly patterns, tiered seating, the works. They’d totally redone the cinemas, changing the entrances and adding stairs and so on - must have cost a fortune. Anyway I was very pleased, and briefly flirted with the idea of going back to work at nights before considering that I would then never see Helpdesk Man, a distinctly un-anniversaryish thought. Also, I’m staggeringly lazy.

Another saunter back down the street to Lone Star for dessert; then we were going to go see 2012 as an homage to our first date-that-wasn’t-a-date, The Day After Tomorrow. But being grown-up and responsible we eventually decided it was silly to shell out $31 on a film that promised to be rubbish, so we re-sauntered back up the street (well, I limped; I never did break in those motorbiking boots) to Auteur House, a v swanky arthouse video store. It turns out Auteur House is a dangerous place to go - we ended up with not one DVD but six. (Twelve Monkeys, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?, The Iron Giant, Clerks, American Graffiti and Fantastic Planet - the latter an animated French scifi which I did not dare refuse.)

We returned home and were partway through Twelve Monkeys - which has no monkeys in it at all, I found to my disgust - when the snortlepig returned. She stole a piece of white chocolate, promptly fell asleep on the milks and woke up an hour and a half later covered with white goo. It seemed she had been clutching the chocolate in her hot little hand for her entire nap. I had to change. Then we left the last half-hour of Twelve Monkeys for a less midnighty hour, went to bed, and I had a distressing dream that the snortlepig had an incurable disease. Still, it was a nice evening. And the kettle is polished for the first time in its life. So all is well.

Yesterday:

You know what? I will probably never learn to speak French. A semi-sobering thought. I’d like to speak French - more accurately I’d like to be the sort of person who learns French for kicks, which the evidence suggests I’m not - but meh. It has tenses. I’m  agin ‘em. I have a friend, though, who taught herself German simply by visiting a LOTR message board. But she’s Aspie - proper Aspie, not just vanity Aspie - and therefore cooler than me, as so many of my friends are. (Case in point: most of them can drive.)

You know what else? I remembered the other thing I had to do this week. It was volunteering at the toy library. Two weeks ago I didn’t turn up when I shoulda, and one week ago I did when I shouldn’ta. If I flake again this week they might start asking me nasty questions about the missing piece on the activity table the snortlepig borrowed a month ago. Must get up tomorrow morning.

I also have to get up in order to make a Shin of Beast, a task which now seems faintly glamorous as I just watched Julie & Julia with my mother. Meryl Strep is marvellous. You think “Oh yes, Meryl Streep, she’s marvellous”, and then you see her in another film and realise yup, she really is. I have that experience with Hamlet, also. And, upon occasion, soft-boiled eggs.

Today:

Got to the toy library on time, thank goodness, and spent a pleasant hour and a half chatting about childbirth and counting 150-piece toys into buckets. It’s a heady power trip, saying to cowering mothers “You do realise there’s a goblet and two trapdoors missing, don’t you…. maggot?”. Collected some used coffee grounds for compost, visited Helpdesk Man at work, then trundled home. Right. I now have the unenviable task of persuading a Tupperware lady to demonstrate this Saturday at a baby shower. And then I need to attack that Shin of Beast and do some long-overdue gardening. Pip pip.

Busy week this week. Whose crazy idea was it to put NaNoWriMo in November?

I gotta write approximately 17,000 words, including one 2000-word print article and a couple of catch-up haircare pieces for Suite.

I gotta plan and prepare for a baby shower this Saturday, which is also - and I stress this was not my idea - a Tupperware party. I guess after the first two babies a plain ol’ baby-themed baby shower seems passe. The odd thing is the mother doesn’t even want to buy Tupperware, just to replace some cracked stuff under its lifetime guarantee. I’ll probably end up buying a dozen lettuce crispers out of guilt for dragging the poor demonstrator over; and I can ill afford ‘em. Hmph.

I gotta finish the baby quilt before the baby shower. Maybe I could quilt it in vaguely Tupperware-shaped patterns, as a subtle nod to the occasion? No, bad thoughts.

I gotta do my taxes. Nothing new. I was supposed to do ‘em in, like, April. The bailiffs will probably seize this blog any day. (Wait a second! “Seize” violates the “I before E” rule! When did this happen? Who authorised it? Good golly. Procrastinate on your taxes for a mere seven months and the world goes topsy-turvy.)

I gotta send a bunch of leaflets off to various churches, a task that was foisted upon me by a woman upon whom it was also foisted, by another woman who came over with the vapours at the mere thought. I have in turn foisted the task on a corner of the kitchen floor, which doesn’t work as well as you might think. Better send them off before the event they are advertising takes place; that, or pitch them in a storm drain and feign oblivion.

Oh smeg. There was something else I gottaed. I cannot remember now. Ooh, we watched Twilight. I was curious. It was rubbish. Helpdesk Man didn’t help. (Me: That’s a nice pagoda. Helpdesk Man, darkly: I’m a pagoda. Etc.) Also I went to my dear friend Nat’s house today after church and we watched the new Star Trek movie. And I have learned how to make tabbouleh. It has bulghur in it, whoda thunk? Right. Gotta wash. Ten-four, minions.

1. What was your favourite moment in Star Wars? A New Hope, I mean, not the entire trilogy (or two trilogies, I could say, but if anyone’s favourite moment actually occurred in the new trilogy I’d have to ban you from the blog, and I’m not sure WordPress supports that function.)
2. Last night I started reading a library book, selected according to my new whatever-the-snortlepig-pulls-off-the-shelf method: Chocky, by John Wyndham. The synopsis on the back cover and Chapter 1 conspired to impart an ominous sense of dread - it’s about a boy communicating with an alien - and I spent a semi-sleepless night cosseting my heeby-jeebies. This afternoon under the light of the kindly sun I read the rest, only to discover it was positively benign. The alien ended up saying a poignant farewell to the boy and promising to give flashes of inspiration to future scientists in order to spur mankind on to achieving renewable energy sources. I mean, really.
3. I saw The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus the other night. Somewhat to my surprise, I liked it very much. Terry Gilliam is the accursed director of Tidelands, an arty and horrific film centred largely around human taxidermy which, with the possible exception of Salad Fingers*, is the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen. So I spent most of the film with my neuroses cocked, as it were, for the first signs of the grotesque. Fortunately it turned out to be more or less seemly. Still Gilliam, of course; bizarre; but by no means grotesque. And the visuals were stunning. Horrible phrase really, “stunning visuals”. To my mind it conjures up images of boringly greyish CGI armies, which wasn’t what Dr Parnassus was like at all. The wagon/caravan/theatre thing the crew travelled and performed in reminded me a little of Pan’s Labyrinth - the same texture and messiness - but more bohemian, theatrical and I can fondly imagine, just a tad steampunk.
4. The odd part, of course, was seeing Heath Ledger, especially as he made his first appearance being hanged. This affected me for a moment until I remembered that a) we watch dead actors onscreen all the time and b) I’m not really a fan of Heath Ledger. I mean, he’s good, certainly, but I don’t have a Thing about him. Not a faux-personal connection like I feel for my favourite actors - Cate Blanchett, for instance. So the film carried on. And just as I was thinking that Ledger’s performance had distinct shades of Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp came on to take his place. (For those not in the know, Heath Ledger died during filming and Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law came in to finish his scenes.) Props to the writers - if Heath Ledger hadn’t died, the film still would have worked with the substitutions. Fortunately he’d finished filming all his real-world scenes, so Gilliam picked a different actor for each time the character entered the fantasy world, and the changes were quite plausibly if vaguely explained away as having something to do with someone’s psyche.
5. Mention should also be made of Lily Cole, who played a convincingly not-quite-adult fifteen-year-old and had disturbing manga eyes. I liked her.
6. Mother has returned from London, with swole and beblistered feet from walking up on England’s golden shore. She brought back many gifties, including a teatowel for myself which advertises a particular brand of tea as a Cure for the Droops. I like it. And you know the wondrous thing? While in Oxford, quite by accident, she and my sister happened upon a steampunk exhibition!
7. The pig has taken to adding “y” to the ends of words. Like “eggy” or “moosey” or “horsey”. Until now, I had thought this was a tactic only adopted by older children.

* “Salad Fingers?”, I can hear you saying. “I haven’t heard of that. I wonder what it can be. I will naively Google it.” Gentle Reader: don’t. They will find you later skrivelling in a corner, attempting to pour Drano through a hole in your skull.

There are probably people reading this blog who haven’t read Their Eyes Were Watching God.

To whom this applies: I am flattered, nay, touched; but your priorities are so far out of whack I wouldn’t be surprised to see you selling your grandmother for a biscuit.

In eight days it will be the three-year anniversary of myself and Helpdesk Man. Year One, we stayed the night in a hotel (in town, because I was pregnant and unable to fit into my motorbike jacket), saw a movie (Resident Evil III) and had dinner at a Turkish restaurant. Year Two, we left the snortlepig to the mercies of her tiny aunt and went out for lunch at a nice restaurant out of town. Year Three, we are looking for ideas. Cheap ideas, because nothing says romance like saving money.

So, we were thinking of leaving the snortlepig with its grandparents (depending on the aimiability of said relations) and oosing out on the motorbike somewhere. I thought maybe hot pools, as I haven’t been swimming since before I was pregnant with the piggie. Then again, there could be bathing suit-related angst attached to such an enterprise. I fancy the idea of skydiving also, but it doesn’t really come under the category of frugal and also, Helpdesk Man is a gurly. What happens if one upchucks at 15,000 feet, I wonder? Could it kill a man? Would you be liable?

Anyhoo. Thoughts? Quaint restaurants with no mooseheads on the walls? Hitherto unsuspected theme parks in the Waikato area? The Amazing Maze in Maize? (I’ve been there; it was quite fun, acksherly.) Arty movie theatres playing arty movies? Do-it-yourself bungee jumping?

This is not the only impending celebration on the Smokey horizon, however. I have decided to have a Thanksgiving party for all my dear friends, and the dear friends also of Helpdesk Man. Negotiations are running hot as to whose house we shall have it at, what we shall eat and other such important matters. Not being American, we can be fairly Protestant about our choices of food and drink - a turkey is probably too rich for our tiny purses, for one thing. But it should be fun.

In other news:

• I woke up early this morning and hustled the snortlepig to the toy library for my mandatory volunteering duty, only to find out we were a week early.
• Helpdesk Man temporarily taught the snortlepig how to say “Nappy” properly instead of “nap-me”. I nearly weeped, but then she forgot again.
• I have now successfully cooked salmon steaks. Feel v. cosmopolitan.
• The snortlepig learned how to say “No no no no no” yesterday off, of all things, a Don Carson podcast. She’s said it before, but not with such rapidity and force of expression.
• My NaNo count is up to 32,123 plus a few hundred more I haven’t added on yet.
• They discovered water on the moon. Int’resting, no? I am pro- the moon. Go moon!, I say. Ask anyone.

This is what comes of not posting promptly. This was yesterday’s entry:

Tonight is my dear friend’s belly-dancing concert, to which I am very much looking forward. Helpdesk Man being kind enough to take the snortlepig off my hands I could, in theory, don a low-cut dress and drink margaritas all night. If I liked margaritas. And had a low-cut dress. (Some bod called me parochial one time: this sort of thing does little to refute it. Although I suppose I should get points for having a friend who belly-dances.)

In actuality I will go to the effort of having a shower and attempt to fit into one of my pre-snortlepig non-breastfeeding-friendly dresses, and after the show is over my two dear friends and I will eat fish and chips at the park before returning to the snortlepig and eating dessert made by me. At least, I think that’s the plan. At any rate it’s still four times more exciting than my average Saturday night.

Can anyone tell me why I can only sometimes get sound on YouTube clips played on Firefox? Other times it refuses to play, and when i try to reboot Firefox gives me an error message which forces me to reboot my entire machine, even though the sequence has assumed the comforting predictability of an episode of Star Trek TOS (The City on the Edge of Forever excepting), never fails to fill me with powerful rage. Gritting rage, one might say.

So anyhoo, here’s a conundrum to brighten your insignificant little life: Which superpower would you rather have, the ability to find good deals in thrift stores or the ability to remember the contents of your garage, pantry and freezer, including expiration dates? I bring this up because we watched Watchmen last night, and all but one of said Watchmen had no actual superpowers whatsoever. Masks, gadgets and martial arts skills, yes; but at heart, nothing but glorified cops. Plus, the one that did have superpowers was blue and extremely naked. It was an interesting, though I feel somewhat flawed and patchy film.

This is today’s entry.

The belly-dancing concert was an experience not to be forgotten. I did manage to fit into a pre-snortlepig dress, a rather nice Keith Matheson blue one that Helpdesk Man doesn’t like (pah!); unfortunately I had thrown out the shoes that went with it on account of them causing me to bleed and fall down. So I wore it with my knee-high leather boots. “You can pull it off”, said Helpdesk Man encouragingly. It was OK. Kind of a River Tam look. Then I got somewhat behind on the getting-ready process, as Helpdesk Man could not be trusted to roll brandy snaps on his own; so instead of doing my hair I left it loose and jammed on my trusty hat. Not that one, the other one. Now I was a bohemian River Tam, and less certain about pulling it off. But it was All Oh Kay until we got to the Cosmopolitan Club and the woman behind the front desk snapped at me “No hats”. For the rest of the evening, I was a hobo River Tam and gave up altogether on trying to pull it off.

The staggeringly inaccurately-named Cosmopolitan Club is neither cosmpolitan nor clublike, but rather consists of an enormous warehouse filled with the odd poker machine, eight glum-looking senior citizens and a sign above the bistro saying “Due to Reduced Patronage, Cafe Hours Have Been Reduced As Follows”. We ordered fish and chips, which were passable, and waited meekly for the show to begin.

Somewhat to our surprise the lights did not dim to allow the dancers to swirl Turkishly in. The disco ball mouldering on the ceiling (presumably an ironic nod to the “cosmopolitan” conceit) remained resolutely still; the microphone was not offered to the troupe’s leader, which made her opening speech that much more tantalising; and surreally, the entire performance was punctuated by cries from a sturdy gent to buy a ticket for the Meat Raffle. Our table tried to tactfully ignore him and watch the show, which turned out to be a horrible faux pas, and he kept returning with ever-increased vigilance in the hopes of catching us feeling peckish for a leg of ham.

To the credit of my dear belly-dancing friend, who was known in the programme as… Perdita? No, that’s 101 Dalmations. Something similar to Perdita.I shall call her Perdita. K? Anyway, to give Perdita her due she sparkled and smiled throughout such adverse conditions in a way pleasing to the soul. Her movements did not blench when the sound system dwindled to the merest hint of music; her smile remained fixed and confident as the announcements blared out for Number 13 to come and pick up his prize; and when, during the highlight of the show, she was forced to dress like a Chinese (?) hooker (?) and sashay behind a guy named Azza who we suspect was rapping but couldn’t actually hear… well, I’ve never been prouder of a friend than at that moment.

The rest of the troupe, not having Perdita’s dance/performance background and being largely over the age of sixty (and in one case, it seemed, slightly disapproving of the whole bellydancing genre, which could be the basis for an interesting character sketch), were somewhat less polished. One of them scuttled out each time looking harried, as if an imp were on her heels; another performed with the ennui of a slightly stoned woman of disrepute who would rather be rinsing out her stockings. I found out later she was the teacher. When Perdita emerged after the show, approximately twelve costume changes later and flushed with the euphoria of success, there didn’t seem that much to say. We congratulated her sincerely on a memorable evening and went home to eat chocolate mousse and watch Bugsy Malone.

Life is odd sometimes.